Job 11:7 - Meaning and Application

Zophar says many good things here about God’s greatness and glory, and about human weakness and foolishness. When we compare these two side by side, and really think about them, it should move us to submit to everything God does in his providence, that is, his wise rule over all things.

First, we see what God is, and we should worship him. He is beyond our understanding, infinite and immeasurable, so our limited minds cannot make a full picture of him. Since we know so little about God’s nature, we are not fit judges of his providence. When we criticize what he does, we are speaking about things we do not understand. We cannot find God out fully, so how dare we fault him?

Zophar’s words show that God’s nature is far above our understanding. "Can you find out God, find him out to perfection? No. What can you do? What can you know?" (Job 11:7-8). You are a weak, short-sighted creature, a worm of the earth, here only a short time. Even if you search eagerly and carefully, can you really expect to finish the search? We may seek God and find him in part (Acts 17:27), but we cannot find him out where he chooses to hide things. We may know that he is, but we cannot fully know what he is. We can see the ocean, but we cannot see across it.

By humble, careful, and believing search, we can learn something about God, but never all of him. We can know him, but not completely. We cannot trace all his work from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God is beyond searching out. The years of his eternity cannot be numbered, the spaces of his greatness cannot be measured, the depths of his wisdom cannot be plumbed, and the reach of his power cannot be bounded. His glory cannot be fully described, and his goodness cannot be fully counted. That is why we should speak of God with humility and care, never try to give him commands, and never quarrel with him. We should thank him for what he has shown us of himself, and long for the day when we shall see him as he is (1 Corinthians 13:9-10).

God’s greatness is also beyond the whole created world. Some read the sense as, "It is higher than heaven," deeper than the grave or the great deep, longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. Much of the sea was not known then, and even now much of creation remains beyond us. We cannot grasp God’s nature. Such knowledge is too wonderful for us (Psalm 139:6). We also cannot fully understand God’s plans or explain why he acts as he does. His judgments are a great deep. Paul uses similar language about the love of Christ, calling it broad, long, deep, and high, and urging us to know it as far as we can (Ephesians 3:18-19).

God is also a sovereign Lord, meaning he rules with complete authority. "If he cuts off by death," or, as the margin suggests, "if he makes a change," whether in nations, families, or our own affairs, who can stop him? If he shuts someone up in prison, or in the net of affliction (Psalm 66:11), if he seizes any creature like a hunter taking prey, who can force him to give it back? If he gathers people like tares for the fire, or gathers to himself a man’s spirit and breath (Job 34:14), who can stop him then? Who can stop his sentence or resist its carrying out? Who can control his power, question his wisdom, or accuse his justice?

If he who made all things out of nothing chooses to reduce them to nothing again, or back to their first disorder, who can turn him aside? If he who first separated light from darkness, and dry land from sea, chooses to gather them together again, who can stop his hand? He who made can also unmake, and no one can challenge him.

God is also a strict and just observer of human beings (Job 11:11). He knows worthless people. We know little of him, but he knows us perfectly. He also sees wickedness, not to approve it (Habakkuk 1:13), but to call it to account. He watches empty, vain people. All people are like that in themselves, since every person, at best, is only vanity. God knows their plans and hopes, and he can break and frustrate them. He sees the foolish thoughts and words of people, and their weakness in doing what is good. He also sees open sin, even when it is hidden carefully and covered up skillfully. Nothing the wicked do is hidden from God’s sight. Will he not take notice of it? Yes, certainly he will, though for a time he may seem silent.

Now we see what man is, and we should be humbled (Job 11:12). God sees that vain man wants to be wise, or at least wants others to think he is wise, even though he is born like a wild donkey’s colt, foolish, stubborn, and untamed. Man is a vain creature, empty inside. God made him full, but he emptied himself and made himself poor. He is now a worthless creature, with nothing in him.

He is also foolish, like the beasts that perish (Psalm 49:20; Psalm 73:22). He is like an ass, the most dull animal, a colt that is not yet trained for any use. If he ever becomes good for anything, that is because of the grace of Christ, who once used a donkey’s colt in his triumph. He is also willful and hard to govern. An ordinary colt may be trained, but a wild donkey’s colt will not be reclaimed and does not listen to the driver’s cry (Job 39:5-7). In the same way, man often acts as if he were free and his own master, like a wild donkey used to the wilderness (Jeremiah 2:24), eager to satisfy his own desires and passions.

Yet man is also proud and self-important. He wants to be wise, and wants others to think so. He prizes the honor of wisdom, though he will not obey wisdom’s laws. He seeks forbidden wisdom, and like Adam and Eve, our first parents, he tries to be wise beyond what God has written. In doing so, he loses the tree of life while reaching for the tree of knowledge. Is such a creature fit to argue with God or call him to account? If we knew God and ourselves better, we would know much better how to act before God.